Blood Money
by Ali Ranger51
Summary: Ranger Meralon, of Norgate, has been taking bribes from Sir Keren for years. Why did this one have to go so wrong? It was supposed to just be a simple exchange of information. How could that have turned into High Treason? What on earth is Keren planning that he'd risk assassinating a Ranger to keep it a secret?
1. Chapter 1

Ranger Meralon, of Norgate, hesitated for a moment before picking up the pouch of gold off the heavy oak desk before him, decision made. He thought it rather pointless to object to the bribe now, after having accepted the countless ones before.

This was slightly different, however. Where before he'd simply been paid to look the other way while the man before him skirted about the law, he had never before taken a bribe for something that could amount to treason.

It couldn't possibly be that serious though, could it? He was only passing on a bit of information that, while difficult, could be obtained elsewhere. It would benefit him as well, wouldn't it? After all, it wouldn't do to have Will Treaty snooping around unchecked and discover that he'd been taking bribes for the past few years.

"Ranger Will Treaty is on his way here, disguised as a jongleur, to investigate the goings on in the fief. He'll be focused of the forest and supposed sorcerer, but knowing Treaty, he'll stick his nose into places where it doesn't belong, causing all kinds of trouble. I've been ordered not to inform you of the investigation, and to stay out of his way."

Meralon watched closely as his companion, Sir Keren, illegitimate nephew Lord Syron of Castle Macindaw, took in the news. Anger flashed behind the man's eyes briefly, before his right hand twitched and he seemed to come to a decision, jaw hardened.

"Do not worry. It will be dealt with. Treaty will not discover anything." The voice was cold, unmerciful, and Meralon's doubts rose to the surface once more.

"What do you plan to do?" he queried, hand clenching tightly around the pouch of gold, causing it to clink.

Keren smirked, and gestured towards to door. "That is none of your concern, Ranger. Perhaps, if you are lucky, I shall inform you once it has been done."

Ranger Meralon nodded, turning, before walking out the door, ignoring the dark sense of forbidding gripping his chest.

* * *

Will grinned and rested his mandola against the wall as he signalled the bartender for a drink. Shadow lay at his feet, her tongue lolling out, as the men in the tavern shouted and clamoured for just one more song.

This was his last stop before Castle Macindaw, and he'd be leaving first thing in the morning. There had been no problems since he had left Berrigan and started traveling on his own. He hadn't messed up a song (noticeably at least), and all the taverns he'd visited had given no sign that they suspected he was anything but a genuine jongleur.

A young serving maid placed his ale on the bench before him, and he gave a gentle smile and nod in thanks, before rising the tankard to his lips. He'd never been much for anything other than the occasional before his current assignment, but after having the drink basically poured down his throat by grateful tavern keepers, he'd developed a taste for a good ale. He'd always been careful to watch how much he was drinking, and had become well practiced at subtly not drinking or 'vanishing' the alcohol.

Tonight though was a milestone, and probably what would be one of his last nights as a pure entertainer. As soon as he arrived at Macindaw, he'd be spending as much time as possible investigating, so Will decided to treat himself with a few tankards.

By the time he had finished the first, Will was feeling pleasantly buzzed. Normally it took more than one for him to get to this stage, but perhaps the ale here was stronger than he was used to. He gestured for the serving girl again, and turned and observed the patrons.

The turning motion had a much greater effect than Will had anticipated, however, and he felt everything tilt slightly off kilter. He frowned, and his instincts were suddenly screaming at him that something was very, very wrong. There was no way he should be this affected by a single ale. His balance and vision were getting worse by the passing minute.

He waved off the serving girl who had returned with his refill, and grabbed his mandola from its spot against the wall. As Will climbed to his feet, he was forced to grab the table for support. Ignoring the tavern keeper, Will made his way towards the stairs to his room above the tavern.

By the time he'd staggered up the steps, there was no longer any doubt in his mind. He'd been drugged, and quite heavily at that. What possible reason could be tavern keeper or his employees have to drug him? And what had he been drugged with? Would it just knock him out, or was it some kind of poison?

After some fumbling, Will pushed the door to his room open and stepped inside. All of a sudden, he was assaulted by an overwhelming nausea, and vomited violently onto the floor. Barely pausing to wipe his mouth on his sleeve, Will grabbed his pack and shut his mandola in its case.

He didn't know where he was going, but Will knew that he had to get out of there, and fast. His vision was blurred, and his sense of vertigo was so far gone that he'd be lucky not to knock himself out by tripping over his own feet. If he was to be attacked, he would be helpless.

Will had barely made it out the doorway before Shadow gave a loud bark of warning and started growling at a large blur at the top of the stairs. Clumsily, Will drew his saxe from its sheath, gripping the heavy blade two handed. As the blur stepped forward and split in half, Shadow launched herself, snarling, at the rightmost blur.

The mass in front of him kept getting bigger, which meant either that more attackers had arrived, his vision was getting worse still, or the man was advancing towards him. Will backed up, pressing his back into the wall, trying desperately to stay on his feet.

Will waited, knowing that he had to take the best shot possible, because he was unlikely to get another one. At the very last moment before his assailant lunged at him, Will stepped forward and thrust into the centre of the dark mass as hard as he could.

He was rewarded by a grunt, before he lost his balance and fell face first to the floor. He was able to distinguish the sounds of Shadow whimpering, and a door slamming, before a fist grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head into the wall, knocking him out cold.

Shadow whined and growled, scratching on the door of the room where the two men had trapped her, as the taller of the men picked Will up and swung his still form over his shoulder. The second man helped up a third who had Will's saxe sunk deep within his stomach, and the men made their way out of the tavern through the back entrance.

As they passed the tavern keeper, the taller man removed a small pouch of gold from his belt and tossed it to the man. The tavern keeper would dispose of the Ranger's animals in the morning, before informing the patrons of the tavern that the jongleur had moved on to the next town.

* * *

Nearly four hours later the men decided that they were far enough into the Grimsdell Wood that they would be safe from any possible pursuers or being discovered. The tall man, the leader of the triad, gestured to his fellows and they stopped, the man dropping Will carelessly to the snow covered ground.

He turned to face the injured man before pulling the saxe violently from his stomach, and thrusting forward, driving the knife deep through the man's ribcage and into his heart. The man died within seconds.

The second man dropped the body to the ground, seemingly careless of the leader's casual violence towards his companion. Blood stained the white snow around the corpse as the leader quickly wiped the knife on the man's tunic before turning towards Will.

"Shouldn't we dig a grave or something?" the second man asked, causing the taller to snort.

"And I suppose that you're volunteering to dig into this frozen ground? There's no point, wolves and other scavengers will tears the bodies to pieces before they can be discovered." And with that ominous statement, the man grabbed Will by the shoulder and turned him onto his back.

Will, frozen and aching, had regained consciousness just before he had been dropped, and was sluggishly trying to orient himself with the situation. He heard enough to know that the men planned to kill him, and in his current state, it seemed that there was little that he could do to stop them.

When he felt a rough hand grab his shoulder and force him onto his back, Will knew that he was about to die. Why couldn't they have finished him off while he was facedown, unable to watch? It was a terrifying thing, watching helpless as his death drew nearer.

The bastard lent over Will and looked him directly in the eyes as the blade of his own saxe flashed in the moonlight. Desperate, Will tried to raise his arm and push the man away, but his arm failed to do more than twitch. The drug was apparently paralytic.

What a way to go. Lying immobile on the frozen forest floor, killed by his own weapon. He tried to say something, anything, that would cause the man to stop, but all that came out was a low groan.

The man smirked. "Goodbye, Ranger."

The next thing Will felt was a horrible, burning pain in his gut as the saxe was driven forcefully into his stomach. His vision went black, and suddenly…

…_Will was standing outside Halt's cabin, brushing down Tug as the man talked. There was a bark from behind him, and Shadow came running down the path, followed by a laughing Alyss who ran up and hugged him tightly, before kissing him lightly on the lips. _

* * *

Ranger Meralon stood once more in Keren's office, the sense of dread from his last meeting stronger than ever.

"You'll be pleased to know that I have taken care of the situation. Will Treaty no longer presents any sort of threat to my plans." Keren smirked, and despite his charismatic air, the sight did little to calm Meralon's misgivings.

"What did you do?" he asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know who Keren had managed to bribe or threaten in order to get Will's mission pulled.

The man gave a shallow laugh, the sound chilling Meralon to the bone. "Why, I did the only thing I could.

"I had Will Treaty killed."

Keren gestured to a small bundle of cloth in the centre of the wooden desk, motioning him to pick it up. Stunned, like a puppet, the Ranger did so, and gently unwrapped the piece of metal inside. A silver oakleaf amulet. Will's. Covered in dried blood.

At the sight of it, Meralon froze, an invisible hand gripping his throat so tightly he couldn't breathe. Dead. Killed. The word was like a hammer, smashing down to break his comfortable world into pieces.

He'd taken a bribe, and Will Treaty was dead because of it. It was _high treason_, unforgiveable. He was in way over his head. There was no way he could possibly cover this up. Keren was out of control.

He had to stop him, he had to do something. He had to get out of there.

Ranger Meralon turned and ran from the office, the bloody cloth and amulet clenched tightly in his grasp, the sound of Keren's laughter chasing him down the stone corridor.

* * *

**_A/N_**

**_Apparently, exam time does wonders for my writing...  
_**

**_Please review and let me know what you think, I love reviews and they really do inspire me. Plus, I love starting random conversations with reviewers..._**

**_Unfortunately, I'm a rather random updater, and despite all my best intentions to stick to a schedule, time just seems to fly out the window. Add to that that have more than one story on the go right now, and their are always new ones jumping up and down in my head, it might take a while before the next update and for this to be completed. Nevertheless, it, and all of my stories, will be completed. And if you're lucky there may even be some updates rapid fire. _**

**_I do not own Ranger's apprentice and its characters. They belong to John Flanagan._**

**_Thanks for reading!_**

**_Ali_Ranger51_**

P.S. Don't kill me. I didn't intend to kill Will when I woke up this morning. Everything just kind of snowballed.


	2. Chapter 2

Ranger Meralon managed to make it to the stables before he caught sight of Keren's men chasing after him. Frantically, he saddled his horse, Kin, and strung his long bow before mounting.

He dug his heels into Kin's flanks and cantered out of the stables, before his path was blocked by a knight with a broadsword. Quick as he could, Meralon plucked an arrow from his quiver and nocked it, before drawing and firing on the man, killing him instantly. Before he could continue his frantic race from Macindaw however, more men circled around him.

Desperate, he tried to think of a plan, but his mind was still reeling from the shock of Keren's revelation. He notched another arrow, but he was interrupted before he could draw back the string.

"There's no point feeling remorse now, Ranger! It's too late! You can't save him! Everything is in the final stages, there is nothing you can do to stop me!" Keren had emerged from the castle and was calmly stalking towards Meralon, his heavy footsteps sounding loudly off the stone path.

His words chilled Meralon, and suddenly he realised that the man was referring to much more than the murder of a King's Ranger. Keren had been planning something for months, years even, and Meralon had no idea exactly what kind of dung he'd fallen into, and it was all his own fault! Perhaps if he hadn't taken any of the bribes and had actually enforced the law rather than allow it to be ignored, he wouldn't be in this mess. Or perhaps Keren would have simply had him killed as well.

His fingers tightened on the bowstring, and Meralon knew that the traitorous knight would no longer hesitate to kill him. If what the man was saying was true, and his schemes were nearing completion, then there was no longer any reason for Keren to keep bribing him. Which also explained his sudden loose tongue.

Taking a deep breath, Ranger Meralon knew what he had to do. He had to escape Macindaw and warn Crowley of Sir Keren's treachery, and Will's death, even if it meant he would face a charge of High Treason. He'd taken vows to serve the king and protect the kingdom, and that is what he would do, even if he faced execution by confessing to his crimes.

* * *

Orman, son of Lord Syron of Macindaw, watched out the window as the Ranger fought Keren's men, trying desperately to escape. At the first sign of arrows, Keren himself had disappeared, not wanting to risk being struck down by the vengeful Ranger.

Miraculously, the Ranger had managed to nearly fight his way free of the men, but not unscathed; he'd taken a crossbow bolt to the leg.

"Sir, everything's packed. I also had the servants stable a pair of horses for us at the back gate." Orman turned away from the window and grabbed one of the packs from his secretary, Xander.

He swung it onto his back and made for the door. "Then we better get going before the Ranger manages to escape and the guards go back to watching the entrances, shouldn't we?"

* * *

Luka had a disproportionally large torso, and rather skinny and frail arms and legs. He'd become one of Malcolm's people many years ago, and had never regretted it. Most of Malcolm's people were deformed in some way, so because they were all misfits, none of them were.

Malcolm, in the guise of Malkallam, managed to keep outsiders away from their sanctuary, and also treated their many ills. Today was Luka's turn to patrol the southern side of camp, and to his surprise, he'd actually found that a group of four men, two obviously injured, had made it quite a ways into the woods undetected.

He had gone to the nearest messenger station, and sent a quick signal to Malcolm using the messenger pipes, before going back and following the men. The small party had continued on in the time it had taken for him to send the message, but it was easy enough for him to follow the footprints in the snow. He had to catch up to the men and get them to wait for the healer; if they travelled much further; it was likely that the man with the knife in his stomach would die from blood loss.

Before he could emerge from the shadows of the trees, the party stopped, and the man in the lead dropped the unconscious one and turned to the others. So suddenly, that Luka couldn't even shout, the man killed the injured man, and turned towards the man face down on the snow.

He covered his mouth with his hand and froze, trying desperately not to make a sound. What if they found him, and tried to kill him too? He wasn't a fighter!

Dimly, Luka realised that the men were talking about something, but he couldn't decipher the voices through the fog in his head. He could only watch as the leader stabbed the helpless man, before grabbing something from around the man's neck, breaking it off. He rubbed the piece of metal in the blood, before barking a command to the remaining man and the two ran from the small clearing, not even bothering to pull the knife from the downed man's stomach.

Luka waited until he could no longer hear the footsteps of the departing men, before he ran from the cover of the shadows and crouched down next to the two bodies. The man on his left was obviously dead, the two wounds having leaked a conspicuous amount of blood. The brown haired man on his right, dressed in the black and white cloak, was deadly still.

Shaking, he reached out and placed his hand at the man's neck, trying to find a pulse as Malcolm had taught him. He gave a small cry of despair when he couldn't find one, and was about to draw his and away when he felt something flutter against his fingers.

Holding his breath, Luka leaned in closer and tried to feel the weak flutter again. His heart skipped a beat when he found it, and he pulled his hand back from the man as if it had been bitten.

Somehow, despite the unconsciousness and knife protruding from his belly, the man was still alive!

* * *

Malcolm rode a small pony as fast as he could towards the west-pond message point. The small pond was frozen over now, and despite the now normal lack of people in the Grimsdell, the message point had remained. He was glad it had. If it had been dismantled for the winter, he wouldn't have been notified of the party of injured travellers. Now, he just had to make sure that he arrived in time to stop the stabbed man from dying from blood loss.

Stomach wounds were dangerous, but not always fatal, especially if a healer got there in time. If, as Luka had said, the man was suffering from a stab wound, as long as the knife remained plugging up the wound, there was a chance Malcolm would be able to save him.

Of course, there was the high chance the wound would become infected and he would lose the man that way. A lot depended on what condition the man was in when he arrived. If they had been traveling for a while the man could have already lost too much blood, or the movement could have caused internal damage.

It took slightly under an hour for Malcolm to find the messenger post in the dark and then follow it to the footprints of the men. From there, it was a rather simple task to follow the tracks until he emerged into a small clearing.

To his surprise, Malcolm found not four men, but two, one obviously dead and the other gravely wounded. Luka was leaning over the injured man, pressing a compress made of his cloak and some moss into the wound around the knife. The look of relief on his face as he caught sight of Malcolm was plain, and the healer was glad that he didn't remove his hands from the wound as others would have.

Malcolm worked quickly, preparing and retrieving poultices to put on the wound, as well as flushing it with an oil to disinfect it as he pulled the knife out. The oil not only flushed bacteria out of the wound, but also slowed the flow of blood so he could treat him.

Miraculously, the man's intestines had been missed by the knife, and there was only minor internal damage. Working fast, Malcolm stitched the wound and questioned Luka about what had happened.

As Luka talked, Malcolm realised that the blood flow was too slow for a wound only an hour old. Over time an ordinary wound clots to slow and stop blood flow, but in this case the knife had stopped the wound from clotting significantly. So what was slowing the blood flow?

Trying to figure out the cause of the strange occurrence in case the man was injured in some other way, the healer ordered Luka to check the man's pulse and count the beats aloud. As he suspected, the man's heart rate was slowed, not heightened as it would normally be when he body had suffered a major trauma.

Putting together the pieces of the puzzle was easy from there. The man's strange, deathly still unconsciousness, the slow heart rate, the low breathing, the smell of ale on the man's breath. He had been drugged. Whether it was just an overdose of alcohol, or something more sinister disguised as alcohol, there was nothing Malcolm could do but hope it didn't turn fatal.

At the moment, the presence of the drug in the man's system was helping keep him alive, and he was reluctant to do anything that might take away that advantage. Added to that was the fact that without knowing when the man had been drugged and what symptoms he had suffered, Malcolm had no way of identifying the drug.

However, he wasn't willing to risk giving the man any non-essential drugs, just in case there was an unpleasant interaction with that was already in the man's blood. This meant that he hoped the man stayed in his near comatose state for a long time, because he couldn't risk giving him anything to take away the dreadful pain of the wound.

Knotting the thread and cutting it with a small knife from his healers pack, Malcolm covered the wound in a salve and started dressing it while Luka constructed a stretcher from the surrounding bush in order to carry the injured man back to his people.

Malcolm didn't know if the young man would live, but he certainly had a chance.

* * *

Sir Keren was smiling as he wrote a missive to the Scotti, despite the fact that the Ranger had managed to escape his men. The Ranger had nowhere to go, and no one to tell. He didn't know what Keren was planning, or even how close his plans were to completion. If the Ranger showed his face in the kingdom again, he'd be executed as a traitor. Such was the fate of any of the high ranking King's men caught taking bribes.

Things would have been slightly easier if the man had been content to ignore his assassination of the other Ranger, but he couldn't change the fact that the man had suddenly grown a conscience.

With a small sigh, Sir Keren rolled up the completed missive and sealed it with a plain drip of wax. After securely fitting the scroll inside a message tube, he stood and moved around from behind his desk to approach the messenger pigeon sitting caged in the corner of the room.

The bird gave a squawk as he grabbed it and tightly fastened the carrying tube to its back. Without a single hesitation, he launched the bird out the window.

Even if Meralon informed someone of his treachery, it was now far too late for anyone to be able to stop his plans. Araluen was completely unprepared to meet the forces of the Scotti army waiting for his messenger pigeon on the other side of One Raven Pass.

* * *

**_A/N_**

**_Tada! Here's the second chapter! And isn't that a relief! Apparently almost killing Will and having him supposed dead is becoming a common plot point for me... Every time I come up with a way to kill Will, he somehow worms out of it, and I'm left feeling both frustrated and relieved. _**

**_I never meant to leave this so long, and I had this chapter almost completed about a week after the posting of the first, but it just wasn't finished until today._**

**_The name for Meralon's horse, Kin, is made up and is the Japanese word for gold. It fit better than the Japanese word for money, Okane, which kind of sounds like a girl's name. Why Japanese you ask? Because I'm currently in Japan, of course! :)_**

**_Tell me what you think! _**

**_Ali Ranger51_**


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